Notes On A Wedding, Part 11 ~ Cool Stuff I’ve Seen This Summer

I am, for the first time in six long weeks,
at home for the weekend. My feet feel like they’ve hardly touched the ground
this summer as I have been all over the place reporting on superb weddings
overflowing with love and loveliness.

With time for some reflection on my hands, I
thought that instead of tackling a specific topic in this instalment of Notes On A Wedding I would instead give
you a rundown of some of the coolest things that the brides and grooms of 2013
have dazzled their guests with. Note that I’m not necessarily saying these are
brand new, innovative ideas, but simply ones that I’ve seen executed to great
effect.

 

Music

I’ve seen some epic bridal entrances in the
past few months, including a full version of Elvis Costello’s ‘She’ as the bride
made her way through beautiful gardens towards her groom. I think most brides
spend a lot of time imagining this pivotal moment of their wedding and the
choice of music is key to creating the atmosphere that sets the tone for the
rest of your ceremony.

To my surprise, I think my favourite entry
soundtrack this year was ‘A Thousand Years’ by Christina Perri (and believe me it pains me to say that as I have no affinity
with Twilight!) I don’t claim to have a musical bone in my body but I can
certainly tell you that this one provided a really emotional score to the
proceedings. It has good pacing too, to counteract the risk of a rushed
procession thanks to the coursing adrenaline. The transition between the verse and
chorus is the perfect moment to follow a line of bridesmaids with a beautiful
bride on the arm of her allocated chaperone.

And since we’re talking about ceremonial
music, I can hand on heart say that the most uplifting recessional piece I’ve
heard recently would be ELO’s ‘Mr Blue Skies’, which was
so wonderful that I thought my heart might burst into a squillion little
pieces.

The other thing I wanted to touch on in this
section was acoustic jazz acts. I’ve seen a traditional Italian folk trio whose
renditions of ‘That’s Amore’ on an accordion and fiddle absolutely delighted
guests during the drinks reception and I’ve seen a very suave French duo who
had even the oldest members of the wedding party jigging about to classic turn
of the century tunes as they sang along to the piano and double bass
accompaniment.

I really think that there’s a charm about
live music during the drinks reception that helps to continue the jubilation of
the ceremony through to the rest of the day. When the artists are playing
classic tunes that everyone knows, be that Nina Simone or a classic Charleston,
your guests will be able to communally enjoy the act.

 

Décor

 A vintage suitcase sat open on a side table
next to a sign proclaiming ‘For your
happy tears.’ Inside were beautiful linen
handkerchiefs that the mother of the bride and her friends on the parish
council had been collecting for months. It was an incredibly personal and
thoughtful detail and, during an emotional ceremony, a vastly utilised resource
as well!

Possibly the most lavish method of allocating
seats to guests was a splendid escort card tree by
Wild About Flowers. Once each person had plucked their escort card from the
blossoming boughs dripping with crystals and glamour, they then married up
their tables on a beautifully ornate full size
mirrored table plan surrounded with flowers. It
certainly made an event out of finding your seat and created show stopping
focal points.

Wedding favours took a whole new turn this
summer when I was presented with a CD that
contained specially recorded tracks of all the
songs that a live choir had sung throughout the wedding ceremony. It was
powerful enough watching the performance in real time but listening to the
recording brings back the memories of that gorgeous afternoon so powerfully.

Presented in a beautifully designed CD sleeve that matched the colours of the
wedding stationery, I was genuinely impressed by the gesture.

I also loved seeing monographs
made from fresh herbs to mark each place at the table
for a wedding of two complete foodies. It looked pretty, it smelt divine and it
was a simple and effective way to add another decorative element to the
tablescape.

 

Entertainment

Should you be looking for a truly elaborate
way to round off the evening’s celebrations, why not have
ballerinas dressed in fairylights to dance in the dark beneath a fireworks display?! I’ve never seen it before and I
doubt I’ll ever see it again, but my goodness this was an epic and magical
moment for the newlyweds and their guests.

Instax cameras have long
been a firm favourite with brides. You may have thought about having disposable
cameras on the tables during the wedding breakfast, but the joy of Instax is
that guests actually make an effort to make funny photos as they get to see the
instantly developed outcome (and then pop their pictures into a
scrapbook/guestbook with a message).

I can assure you that this simple idea
does keep people entertained throughout a three-course meal, if only as they
all try to work out how to use the camera…

You might not think a wedding is a place to fly a kite, but you would be wrong. I have never seen little kids so well
entertained as when they were galloping up and down the hill beneath The
Mansion in Leeds trying to get their kites into the air.  I’d like to say it was
purely child’s play but there were some pretty excited adults as well trying to
sail on the evening’s breeze…

Image Credit – Michael Stringer

Food

I guess you could summarise this section as
my love for live food stations. The first thing I saw was a traditional clay
pizza oven as part of one wedding venue which provided the delicious food for
the evening reception. Despite the huge meal that had gone before, the smell of
fresh ingredients and gently baking dough made everyone ravenous for the
exquisite pizzas by the time they were ready to eat. Whilst I realise not
everyone has a pizza oven, you can hire them independently and if you’ve got
caterers they may well be able to source one for you. Trust me, that smell is
to die for after a hard night of dancing!

Secondly, one wedding I went to had a burger
station in the early evening for night time guests to enjoy. With chefs cooking
patties before their very eyes to their own specification, guests could then go
on to choose their type of bread, fillings and toppings. It was substantial
food, it was tasty food and it was interactive – giving them a choice about
what they ate and when they wanted to eat it. 

 

Dance

Don’t wait until after dinner to do your first dance. One couple surprised their guests by more or less dancing into
their wedding breakfast. This was probably way more spectacular than someone
announcing their names as they entered the room and it also meant that the
party vibe started early and infused the meal as well.

Image Credit – James and Lianne

I had an eye-opening time learning about the
traditional dances associated with Greek weddings. The Money Dance is
definitely something I won’t forget – not only for the sheer volume of sterling
and Euro notes on the dance floor but for the tenderness and pride in which
friends and family members gave their donations – but I really loved the ladies
dancing the kalamatiano. I’d
quite like all cultures to adopt this tradition as it was so nice seeing the
bride at the middle of the circle leading the dance with her best maids and Mum
next to her.

Finally, there
were dance floor rules. In this
case, the bride had alluded to lunges for the sake of the rest of her netball
team but I think we can all adhere to these simple guidelines when it comes to
tearing up the dance floor to celebrate the marriage of our nearest and
dearest. Don’t be afraid to enforce your rules either – at one point I glanced
over to see the bride in the middle of the dance floor holding the blackboard
above her head and pointing at offenders.

So those are
just some of my highlights from this magical summer of weddings. Have you
already opted for any of these ideas? Has it given you food for thought? I’d
love to know what upcoming trends you think are going to be hot in wedding
world during the months to come!

Emma